# Artists with dashes in their names **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [August 16, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018 "2014-08-16T15:28:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/masterito/32/444_2.png) [@Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Masterito)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018/1 "2014-08-16T15:28:20Z")
Good afternoon all, I am trying to work myself around the following issue here. I have a very simple setup where I just make the filenames nice and clean and then want to filename to tag for just artist and title. as a seperator I use a dash Michael Jackson - Thriller.mp3 is all I want and it works perfectly. I write the tag from filename and it puts it exactly where I want it. There's a problem though when there's a dash in the artist name. MP3tag thinks that first dash is the seperator and will do something like this: T-Rex\_-\_Unicorn(downloaded from www.here.qq).mp3 Becomes T - Rex - Unicorn.mp3 But in tags it says for artist: T and for title: Rex - Unicorn Is there a way to work around this? Thanks in advance. PP ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018/2 "2014-08-16T15:54:17Z")
You have to find the really unique identifier. The examples you suggest that the michael jackson filename actually has blank-dash-blank as separator (I bet you ended up with an extra blank behind Jackson). The other example has underscore-dash-underscore as separator... So if you use that combination you would get T-Rex as one name. Also, if you set a filter like %\_filename% MATCHES "._-._-" you will find the files with 2 dashes in the filename. You could then use the mask %artist%-%artist%-%title% to get T and Rex into the ARTIST field. You loose the hyphen, though. So, if the identifier/separator is not unique or the pattern is not consistent if does not work. ---
**Author:** ![Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/masterito/32/444_2.png) [@Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Masterito)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018/3 "2014-08-24T05:25:16Z")
Thanks for the reply ohrenkino! I have been tinking, after I got all my stuff done over the file name it normally looks like: artist - song.mp3 After that I write the tags from the filename with the guess values option. As I mentioned before this fails me when there another - in the artist name Is it possible to do a replace for only the first - ? No matter where it is, but only if there is more then one I could then remove the spaces from around the - hence making it the recognizable for the value guesser. I am aware that this will mess up when there's an extra - in the title, but I'll take my chances. The filter is actually a pretty good idea. I tried it and it works half. It writes the artist tag from part 1 or 2, not combining them 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/masterito/32/444_2.png) [@Masterito](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Masterito)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018/4 "2014-08-24T05:43:47Z")
I found a "simple" solution to my problem. _EDIT_ This is what I did now: I made a new action group that runs after all my "normal" stuff is done. Action: #1 - replace - with - in the filename #2 - replace with #3 - Format value \_FILENAME to %artist%-%title% #4 Guess values %\_FILENAME% %artist% - %title% #5 - Format value \_FILENAME to %artist% - %title% #6 - Replace in TITLE - with - #7 - Format value \_FILENAME to %artist% - %title% This makes from: Nu-Matic - All Over Me (Test - Test).mp3 Nu-Matic - All Over Me (Test-Test).mp3 with artist: Nu-Matic and title All Over Me So this also tackles my problem with dashes lateron in the filename I am a happy camper. Thanks for making me think 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/artists-with-dashes-in-their-names/16018/5 "2026-02-09T12:25:11Z")
Closed on February 9, 2026, 12:25pm UTC